Scary dreams are (too) useful

Dreaming protects the sleep our body needs to rest and rejuvenate. Everything that can prevent us from sleeping (for example, sounds or sensations), the dream enters into its plot in such a way as to prevent us from waking up.

It can turn the ringing of an alarm clock into a chime of bells, and a dream can show a person who is thirsty because dinner was too salty how he drinks clean water from a mountain stream. But sometimes we have terrible dreams — and, on the contrary, we wake up in the middle of the night and sometimes even jump out of bed. Why is this happening? What are frightening dreams for?

Reveal the «Forgotten»

The dream, in addition to the duty to maintain the state of sleep, has another task. The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, called dreams «the royal road to the unconscious»*. He found out that with their help our unconscious communicates with us, and dream images are peculiar words of his language. But isn’t it possible to simply «show» some interesting, memorable dream?

“Frightening dreams, nightmares are something that cannot be ignored,” explains Jungian psychoanalyst Vsevolod Kalinenko. This is what shocks us and makes us think. We see nightmares if our «I» ignores what the unconscious is trying to communicate. Our consciousness is, in a sense, one-sided: it tends to “forget” everything that is incompatible with our beliefs and causes psychological discomfort. But in certain circumstances, the «forgotten» may be exactly what we can no longer do without.

What makes a dream a nightmare

It happens that unexpected turns of events or threatening characters in a dream cause us only bewilderment, curiosity, or even excitement. And in other cases, a seemingly harmless plot makes you feel anxiety and even fear. What’s the matter here?

“Not the unconscious, but our consciousness evaluates the dream as a nightmare and makes us wake up,” explains psychoanalyst Norbert Chatillon. One of his patients, shortly after the New York disaster of September 11, 2001, dreamed that a supersonic aircraft was flying over the city blocks. Its engines are running at full power, but instead of gaining altitude, the plane suddenly begins to back up, as if it is being pulled back towards residential buildings.

“The plane could still pick up speed and altitude,” the psychoanalyst clarifies, but the patient could not get rid of severe anxiety. Norbert Châtillon believes that this plane symbolizes the dreamer himself, and the dream indicates that it is difficult for him to escape from the family circle (residential buildings), which does not allow him to take off, pulls him back.

“My patient is an active and creative person, but his family life does not give him strength, but takes them away. And the unconscious through the dream warns: “You are using your energy against yourself. You can either change course or leave things as they are. The choice is yours». The realization of this caused anxiety in my patient, and he woke up in a fright.

If we carefully and calmly examine the message that is contained in the dream, then the fear caused by it at first will decrease.

“But you should not analyze a dream if you wake up in horror in the middle of the night,” says Vsevolod Kalinenko. — It is best to write it down, try to calm down and fall asleep. And then, already in the morning, in a calm state, return to this plot and carefully consider its images.

Everyone has their own code

Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, discovered that the same symbols and plots are repeated in the dreams of different people.

Long or sharp objects (such as umbrellas, planes, knives …) are symbols of male sexuality, and objects that limit the hollow space (such as bags, bottles …) are symbols of the feminine.

Corridors or labyrinths often indicate confusing situations and the search for a way out of them. However, each plot has several reading options, and it can only be correctly understood in the context of life events and the dreamer’s personal associations.

So, both 36-year-old Daria and 27-year-old Alla often see in a dream how men with daggers or saws are chasing them. Daria’s childhood passed in an incomplete family: she was raised by her mother, who was offended by her father who left them.

Over time, Daria began to adhere to radical feminist views. Analyzing her dream, she suddenly realized that she was afraid of men and did not trust them. And her radicalism is more the result of this deep distrust than her strong convictions. Alla grew up in a family of strict rules. Her dreams speak of a conflict between her attraction to men and her father’s condemnation.

“Any symbols in a dream are very individual. If we try to bind a specific image to a specific meaning, we greatly simplify the situation, and this simplification is most often unjustified,” warns Vsevolod Kalinenko.

Classics of the genre

Some stories appear more often than others in our nightmares. We can try to get closer to their general meaning, while remembering that a full understanding is possible only taking into account the specific circumstances of the one who dreamed about them.

Chase, flight. The characters who chase us in our dreams embody those aspects of our personality that we fear and despise in ourselves. These are the features of our nature, desires and character traits that our parents did not approve of in childhood, shamed for them, punished. And we have learned to hide them — from others and from ourselves. Jung called that area of ​​the unconscious where these properties of ours are collected, the Shadow**.

One of the feelings often repressed into the Shadow is aggression. We refuse to identify ourselves with the aggressor, but frightening figures of monsters and murderers appear in our dreams.

“Rejecting our aggressiveness, we reject our energy, which can be directed not only to destruction, but also to overcome any circumstances,” explains Vsevolod Kalinenko. “Perhaps it is this energy that we need during the period when we have a terrible dream.”

Loss of integrity of the body, death. Dreams in which the body is destroyed, despite the fear they cause, can have a positive meaning. “They say that it is time for us to change something in ourselves, to symbolically bury the old or even ourselves in order to be born again,” Vsevolod Kalinenko clarifies. “A dream in which a person sees himself in a coffin indicates that he is ready for change.”

Flight, fall from a height. Falling from a height risks breaking, so the meaning of sleep also concerns the beginning of a new stage in life. If you dream of a flight, the interpretation expands. In the collective unconscious, flight is associated with the myth of Icarus. He flew too high against the advice of his father, the sun melted the wax that held his wings together, and Icarus fell into the sea.

Norbert Châtillon explains that Icarus was never able to make his flight because he was too dependent on his father, who made all the decisions for him. “The fall of Icarus is usually discussed, but the main point is different,” says the psychoanalyst. Every person is faced with the need to learn to fly on their own wings. In other words, learn to be independent.

Lost teeth, broken teeth. This plot is often associated with attack, aggression in general and verbal aggression in particular. Such dreams mean that a person forbids himself to be aggressive or has difficulty communicating.

Dreams on the web

“I often have the same dream: as if my hair falls out in clumps, remains in my hands and on the comb,” elinnas admits on the forum. Why is he following me? In real life, my hair is fine.» A forum visitor named carnaval replies: “This is a sign of a lack of vitality. You’re tired, you don’t have enough energy.» “Exactly,” agrees elinnas. “I lost my job a month ago and I can’t find a new one. Some kind of apathy, everything is tired.

Thanks to the Internet, we have the opportunity not to be alone with our nightmares. However, non-professional interpretations may be too categorical or incomplete, and this should not be forgotten.

“Hair in dreams, for example, is often associated with psychosexual identity,” comments Vsevolod Kalinenko. “Women’s dream of hair loss may indicate problems with self-esteem.”

Dialogue with the unconscious

So, dreams convey messages from the unconscious and help us enter into a dialogue with it. Freud believed that in symbolic form they reflect our forbidden desires, allowing us to experience what we would like to, but cannot get or do in reality.

Jung saw their meaning in maintaining and restoring mental balance. (For example, nightmares of being naked in a crowd may be experienced by someone who is overconfident, loses self-criticism, and risks getting into a difficult situation because of it.)

There are other points of view on the function of dreams. But all researchers agree on one thing: the unconscious always works for us. Even if the images seem menacing and dangerous, the dream as a whole carries an important message from the unconscious. And it is in our power to hear it — for our own benefit.

* Z. Freud «The Interpretation of Dreams.» AST, 2009.

** E. Samuels «Jung and the Post-Jungians». CheRo, 1997.